We all need a few tips on losing a bit of weight. You probably know many of these tips but it always helps to get a reminder every now and then. Here are 10 tips to get you started in the right direction.
1. Avoid Trans fats. That means avoiding fast food restaurants for the most part. It is possible to eat healthy at fast food restaurants but you will have to leave out fried foods including the tasty french fry. You can eat healthy mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats. Eat fish and nuts.
2. Lift weights and build muscle. The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism and the more calories you will burn during the day.
3. Instead of performing steady state cardio exercise do interval training. Rotate 45 seconds of sprinting with 1.5 minutes of brisk walking. Do this for 20 – 30 minutes.
4. Eat smaller meals more often during the day. Try to eat at least 5 small meals during the day. And make sure you eat enough. If you do not enough your body will go into protection mode and begin to stack on the fat.
5. Eat high quality protein. If you hope to build muscle then you need to eat protein. Choose lean meats and fish. You can also supplement with some Whey or Casein Protein.
6. Be more active. Take more walks. Walk to the store, the video store or other places it may be reasonable to do so. Rather than sit during your lunch hour, get out and walk around.
7. Exercise in the morning when you glycogen stores are lower. This means your body will tap your fat reserves for energy much quicker.
8. Drink a lot of water. Water will flush the garbage out of your system and help keep your metabolism high. It also fills the belly so you don’t eat quite as much.
9. Get enough rest at night time. It is ironic that I say this since it is now after midnight. I need to get to bed. Without rest you will sap your body of the energy needed to exercise and will put your body in harm’s way on the health front. You should get at least 7 hours each night.
10. Eat slower. This is one of my problems. I have a tendency to blow through my plate of food. My initial temptation is to get another plate. Sometimes I give in. It takes your body a few minutes to realize it is full (about 20 minutes or so) so eat a little slower and allow you body to send you the signals.
Everyone wants a flat belly. We want the washboard abs and the ripped midsection. There are a multitude of programs designed to get you exactly that: a flat belly. Many have created gadgets or exercise tools to get you there. I hate to tell you this but if you have excess fat around your midsection the you can do crunches, sit-ups, ab rollers, ab chairs, ab balls or any other ab exercise until the cows come home and it won’t make much difference.
I understand the desire to get rid of belly fat and concur with the obsession with it. Belly fat is more dangerous than any other type of fat. Belly fat is considered a contributing factor to heart disease and other diseases. Not to mention the fact that you don’t look so great in a bikini or swimsuit.
But losing belly fat is dependent on your ability to burn calories and lose weight. If you want to lose belly fat then it is imperative that you diet and exercise. The exercise with help you burn calories, the diet will enable you to restrict calories and the combination of the two will begin to make war on the fat around your belly.
Stop falling for the gimmicks and buckle down and stick to what works. Eat sensible smaller meals about four times per day and exercise at least four times per week. I would recommend at least a 45 minute brisk walk on the days that you are not exercising.
Weight training should be a part of your exercise program as well as some form of exercise that gets your heart rate up. This can be cardio, body weight exercise, interval training or some program like Turbulence Training.
So if you want to burn belly fat get out there and dedicate yourself to a sensible diet and consistent exercise program and you will begin to see results.
Just one final word. It has been my experience that belly fat is one of the last areas where the fat will leave. You will probably lose fat in other areas first but stay dedicated and and the fat will begin to disappear from your belly.
When you are attempting to lose weight you will hit the the dreaded plateau. You know what I am talking about. Everything seems to be working so well. You are burning calories and losing weight. Your exercise program and diet is working. Success is yours. And then seemingly overnight everything changes.
You haven’t changed anything. You haven’t eaten more or exercised less. So what happened. Well you have hit a plateau. It is inevitable. Why you ask?
Well your body is sometimes you enemy when attempting to lose weight. Your body wants to maintain a balance. So when you are losing weight your body is trying to figure out how to adapt to it and stop it from occurring. I know this stinks but it is a reality. So if you want to avoid plateaus then you need to keep your body confused or off balance.
Here are some ideas.
If you are in the weight room you can change your set and reps from week to week. You can stick with the same exercise program but vary your sets and reps.
You can switch up your exercises. Instead of doing a barbell bench your may want to switch to a dumbbell bench press or an incline bench press. I would vary your weight room exercise routine at least every 12 weeks or so.
If you are doing cardio then you can vary your intensity or the time that you do your cardio workouts. Do something like interval training where you can constantly switch up the times of intensity and moderate activity.
You may also want to try re-feeding. I wrote a recent article on this so I won’t cover it again. You can read the article on How to Lose Weight with Re-Feeding.
If you keep your body confused through the tactics described above then you should be able to bust through any plateaus that you may experience.
